Tesla Powered Sauron’s Eye

[Peter] sent in his latest Tesla coil experiment. He calls it the “Eye of Sauron” effect. It was created by adding a rotating breakout to an already powerful Tesla coil. It isn’t quite the same as the old evil eye of Tolkien’s dreams, the picture is a 22 second exposure of two rotations of the 7 foot aluminum tube.

The nigga bought aluminum tubes! Do I need to tell you what the fuck you can do with an aluminum tube? ALUMINUM! That don’t scare you? Fine. I didn’t want to have to say this but…the motherfucker bought some yellowcake, OK? In Africa. He went to Africa and he bought yellowcake.

i got news for you, in australia they’d put you in terrorist jail just for thinking about building a freakin’ tesla coil .. everyone knows australia is owned by chevron, they don’t like no tesla shit down there whatsoever ..

I’m the Tesladownunder guy. (Thanks for reminding me I’m 50).The photo turned out really well and only took a few hours modifications and an hour of setup and shooting. I take about 5000 photos a year of which 1 in 10 – 20 makes it to my site. I do a lot of long exposures in low light situations. Even though this makes it look more dramatic than it is in real life, a running Tesla coil is still dramatic. If you don’t think so, get closer. I am about 5 feet away with an earthed object in front of me so “fairly safe”.Yes I stood still for 22 seconds. (I am 50 – did I already mention that?)

I have plans for a really good photo with more universal appeal. I am gathering stuff and constructing this weekend.

Further to that if you want to check out that skit super_chris quoted, it’s at

I agree 11s/rotation wouldn’t have the same effect to look at, I don’t think he mentions how it’s powered other than “motorized” but I’m pretty sure it could be made to rotate faster than that. It could well just be a sensible safety precaution.

Motor power is by a 24 V aircraft motor with a very solid reduction gear. There is no need to make it fast for the photo. To actually give visual blur at say 10 RPM the tip would be travelling at 360kph.